


Please Stop Leaving Chunks of Yourself All Over the Couch

by flutter



Category: Shade by Emily Davenport
Genre: Death, Gen, Sad, obscure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-30
Updated: 2005-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:23:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutter/pseuds/flutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Weird death fic from an obscure sci-fi/fantasy book by Emily Davenport. The book is worth a read if you can find it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Please Stop Leaving Chunks of Yourself All Over the Couch

**Author's Note:**

> Weird death fic from an obscure sci-fi/fantasy book by Emily Davenport. The book is worth a read if you can find it.

I dreamed about Stone again; I dream about him all of the time. This time, though, he was whole—he was solid, complete and not bleeding. There were no chunks of his body detaching and resting on Donokh’s couch.  
  
“Why don’t you just leave,” I pleaded, beyond frustrated.  
  
It felt like each dream with him had merged and we’d been staring at each other for months. We were slips of past dreams, shuffling and seaming together; there were dozens of us sitting on top of each other. I really hoped all of the Stone’s wouldn’t start bleeding at once.   
  
All he ever did when he came to me in dreams—whether whole or falling apart—was sit there. His face always a mask, his body always still. Well, still with the exception for the parts that occasionally fell off in the usual, more grotesque dreams.   
  
I could feel my fingers twitch for one of my knives.   
  
Whenever I dream of him I eventually hand over one of my knives so he can slit his throat—so he’ll disappear. It’s easier to watch him slit his throat than to watch him sit there, cold-eyed and quiet.   
  
Sometimes I forget he didn’t slit his own throat. Sometimes I wish he had. Maybe if he had the power to kill himself while he was alive, he wouldn’t be so eager to grab my knife in dreams. Still, it was easier than watching him fall apart—easier than watching _him_ watch _me_ with those dead eyes.  
  
It didn’t take long to know this dream was different; that this one _felt_ different. He still hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved, but I felt pressed in upon. I would have scoped him but I can’t scope dead people; I especially can’t scope dead people in my dreams. All I had to go by was that it felt like he was waiting for something.   
  
The air certainly felt heavier and, even though he looked whole, I smelled the mix of tazer-singed skin and congealed blood. The smell always reminds me of the night I found him, half-dead and on the kitchen floor of the Baby School. The charcoal marks I had found that night were the only signs that someone once stood, sat, or lie there, waiting for their next client. The Q’rin dogs must have had fun that night, killing all of the kid whores—blasting their force guns once, twice, three times till the bodies had vaporized.  
  
I sat down on one of the harder chairs opposite Stone. He always occupied the couch and I think he’d almost rather me keep my distance. For whatever his reason, I agree; I didn’t want to sit too close in case he decided to erupt into his usual gruesome depiction.  
  
We just sat there, Stone and me. We sat and waited together. He waited for whatever he was expecting and I waited because it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere.  
  
I don't know how long it was until one of us moved. I don't even know which of us moved first. If I had been able to scope, I would have been able to sense his intent to move before his body followed.  
  
All I do know is that in a matter of seconds we had both reached for something—I for one of my knives, him for a stick of Loki. Maybe I thought he was reaching out for my knife, tired of looking at me or of waiting for me to hand it over.   
  
Maybe he just really needed a smoke.   
  
But I watched as he moved. He drew his hand up to his chest as his force gun wound appeared then stretched—ripped and oozed—across to reach his left shoulder. He just sat there as it gaped open and started to sizzle. I watched as he lit it with nothing more than the burning skin there that glowed red. I watched the ash end of his stick as it fired bright with each pull, his hard lips clamping and sucking on the other end.  
  
“Blackie.” One name; her name. It rose through a swirl of blue-gray cloud.   
  
Of all the times he had come to squat in my head and he wanted to chat about his pimp.   
  
And possibly the reason he was dead. Definitely the reason I’ve been holed up in a Q’rin fortress and in Donokh’s home.   
  
I still can’t believe Blackie tried to sic that Lyrri on me. Actually, I can believe it; Blackie only ever did whatever she wanted and we both knew she hated me—even when she was kissing my ass.  
  
“She was killed”—I glanced at him, hoping to see the chest wound had disappeared and suppressed a shudder when I saw that it hadn’t—“by that Lyrri she tried to sell me to.”  
  
He dragged the loki from his mouth and smoke streamed from his nose, billowed from his chest wound. I looked into his eyes so as not to watch it unfurl out of his chest, peaking and curling like gray ribbons. His eyes reflected the rising smoke, like pools of water having iced over with brushed metal. Come to think of it, his eyes had always been like that, even when he was alive.   
  
I felt uneasy under his stare, as if he were trying to push something toward me or into me. But we hadn’t liked each other enough to fuck when he was alive, so I don’t know why we’d be that way now that he was dead. What purpose, or desire, did a dead guy have to fuck anyway? It’s not as if it was _his_ dream to get all wet and sloppy in; I really wish this had been one of those dreams. Stone wouldn’t be here if it were.  
  
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if this haunting-self of his was anything like his physical self was. He’d probably be smooth and blank, like those old Barbie and Ken dolls from Old Earth. That’s not worth my time and, besides, those rumors about Q’rin men were true.   
  
A glint of… something slid across Stone’s eyes. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand. I felt as if I was back in Deadtown, the adrenaline that would rush through before drawing my knives to protect my food or self.  
  
“Wasn’t she?” I had to ask, not because I was curious but because it seemed to be exactly what he wanted me to question.  
  
He stemmed his loki stick out in his hand and did something I never saw him do once while he was alive—he smiled. It wasn’t a smile of joy or sorrow. Instead, I think, it looked more like a smile of pity.  
  
“Stone?” I sat up straight, rigid on my hard chair, and searched his face for something more than that awful smile.  
  
He nodded—he simply nodded—to a point over my left shoulder. I didn’t want to look and, for a moment, thought perhaps I _couldn’t_ look. My body didn’t feel much like anything and I wondered if I hadn’t just solidified into position—a newer, softer looking statue for Donokh’s collection.  
  
The hair prickled on my neck again, rippling along in waves of alert.  
  
I moved my body to look behind. Even my dream-self realized my movements were slow and harrowing. It felt as if I were turning in a vat of molasses and nails. And, when I finally broke free of it—when I finally turned completely around—I saw her.  
  
Blackie.  
  
She smiled. And it was a beautiful smile—a fake smile—and all too much like Blackie to not be real. Maybe it was real. I couldn’t tell.  
  
I watched as she paced in front of me, a perfect combination of bouncing delight and fury. Oh yeah, that was Blackie; she was either trying to land a punch or talk me into giving in to her.   
  
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I told her. My fingers itched for my knives again and this time I gripped the warn pommels and slid them both from their belts. I twisted them till I held them firm and sure.  
  
She stopped pacing and slipped towards me, stopping when she was inches away from my face. I didn’t move, didn’t step back.   
  
“You’re not supposed to be _here_ ,” she said and looked around at Donokh’s rooms. “A deadtowner taking refuge with a Q’rin dog, wearing Q’rin clothes instead of the deadtowner plasti-fix—very strange, very unlike you.”  
  
I could smell an earthy scent on her breath, like loki or numbraine… but not.  
  
“I never understood why you wanted to hang out with the Elephant Man or a Dog instead of the beautiful Lyrri.”  
  
“Chaz should have really killed you,” I told her. “And if he hadn’t—if I had known—then you should have realized I’d kill you myself.”  
  
She only stared, that smile plastered on her face.  
  
“He should have ripped you apart like those boys of his and eaten what was left of you.”  
  
Her tinkling laughter rang out then. “Oh, Shade”—the air crackled with a static when she said my name and, though I had once been used to it, it shook me—“he ate plenty.”  
  
“Between delicious bouts with me,” and at this she stretched, “and all of the scar babies I sold him, he never went hungry for anything.”  
  
“Then it’s true,” I said, with a glance at Stone who was still silent, still sitting there, watching us. “What Stone told me, it’s true—you sold the scar babies, set up the baby school raids; it was all you.”  
  
She grinned then and the static sparked again. “All me.”  
  
“Excellent,” I said, hoisting my knives closer, smiling at her for the first time.  
  
Her grin faltered and I could see she hadn’t expected my response. It was better this way, I knew—better that Chaz hadn’t killed her after all. It was better that she was alive and I was aware, possibly more aware than I ever was before.  
  
“You’ve always wanted a go, Blackie,” I said to her, moving closer to her than she had dared earlier to get to me. My mouth whispered hot against her ear and I could feel the moisture stop between the thin layer of air between us.  
  
“Get ready for me.”  
  
When I glanced over at Stone, I could see he had started to fall apart again. Instead of bleeding all over Donokh’s couch, however, he was disappearing—disintegrating.   
  
With one last smile to Blackie, I woke up. I found myself lying next to Donokh, hard bodied and green beside me in bed. My knives had somehow found themselves out of previously shed clothes and into my hands before my feet ever touched the ground.  
  
I wasn’t worried; I’m not worried now. Probably because I know I’ll find her, no matter where Blackie has been holed up. I’ll know where she’s hidden herself away the minute I slip back into Deadtown. And when I do find her—when I do—I’ll do what Chaz didn’t have the chance to.


End file.
